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Hugo Chávez’s Unlikely Soccer Legacy

By Stefan Bienkowski March 20, 2013 10:21 amMarch 20, 2013 10:21 am

Photo

The former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez with Diego Maradona in 2010.Credit Fernando Llano/Associated Press

In death, Hugo Chávez may conjure more debate and split more opinions than he ever did in life. Whether the former Venezuelan leader is remembered as a man of the people who brought millions out of extreme poverty or castigated as a deranged autocrat who drove his country in to debt and hyperinflation, the true measure of his time as a president will lie in the legacy and future he has left for Venezuela.

But aside from socialist ideals or divided notions of public or privately run institutions, one aspect of Venezuelan society has undisputedly flourished amid the care and attention it has received over the past era of Chávez’s reign: fútbol.

During a time when Venezuela’s inflation spiked, its crime crept to a high and its budget deficit swelled to an unsustainable levels, the country’s domestic soccer game undertook something of its own revolution as the world finally welcomed Venezuela to the beautiful game.

Although soccer can track its roots in Venezuela as far back as the middle of the 19th century, through British rubber and mining companies’ exporting the colonial game to its shores, it was the introduction of baseball at the turn of the century — again through a foreign workforce in the form of oil workers from the United States — that would go on to define the sporting agenda of the country for the duration of the 20th century.

While South America was driving a revolutionary stake through the heart of world soccer with the first mixed-race Uruguayan Olympic and World Cup-winning teams of the 1930s and ’40s and the introduction of Brazilian samba at the 1950 World Cup, Venezuela was captivated by the American way of sport, winning baseball’s version of the World Cup on three occasions between 1940 and 1950.

Yet the country that once proudly nicknamed itself El Pais de Béisbol (the country of baseball) would one day fall in love with soccer. Twenty-five years after its first baseball World Cup victory, Venezuela plunged in to its first competitive international soccer match when it entered the qualification round for the 1966 World Cup. Losing each of the four games against Chile and Peru, Venezuela soon got used to bitter failure. It went the next 30 years with no more than two competitive wins, earning the contemptuous nickname Cenicienta (Cinderella).

Theirs was a cursed path with few highs and all too many lows as they became the only South American country to never qualify for a World Cup. This rut dragged on until 1998, with the domestic league on its knees, and the national team ranked 129th in the world — the lowest it had ever been. Then a bright, young president preaching the tones of social revolution was elected.

The change was almost immediate. As Chávez would go on to define his tenure by pushing Venezuela to the forefront of international debate, the national team began making headlines, picking up its first away win, against Ecuador, later in the year. Richard Páez — the country’s most successful international manager to date — was soon hired, and he went on transform the team from underachieving extras to exciting underdogs.

The defining moment for Venezuelan soccer came in 2007, when the country hosted the Copa América for the first time, helped by a $186 million investment from Chávez’s government and a number of private companies. As well as upgrading the public transpotartion system and communication industry, Chávez built three new stadiums and upgraded another six across the country, ensuring that Venezuela’s tournament was the first of its kind to take place in so many cities across the host country.

Such investment led to inevitable growth within the country’s domestic leagues; the top division was increased to 18 teams from 10 to complement the new quality and popularity of the sport. But the payoff was best exemplified through the national team’s performance during the tournament, where it advanced out of the first round for the first time, but progressed to the quarterfinals with a squad made up primarily of players playing within the country’s domestic league.

Páez has since moved on, but Venezuelan soccer still continues from strength to strength. The signs of progress are perhaps most noticeable not in the direct quality of the domestic league, but the pedigree of the players it produces, and the sheer number that has gone on to ply its trade in Europe’s top leagues. From Salomón Rondón in the far reaches of Rubin Kazan in central Russia to Hamburg’s Thomas Rincon to Luis Manuel Seijas of Standard Liege in Belgium, Venezuela now claims a generation of young players.

Since Chávez’s inauguration in 1998, Venezuela has moved from 129th in the FIFA World rankings to 45th. It is currently fourth in South American qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

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Goal, The New York Times soccer blog, will report on news and features from the world of soccer and around the Web. Times editors and reporters will follow international tournaments and provide analysis of games. There will be interviews with players, coaches and notable soccer fans, as well as a weekly blog column by Red Bulls forward Jozy Altidore. Readers can discuss Major League Soccer, foreign leagues and other issues with fellow soccer fans.